This is one of those times of the year: struggling to keep the head above the water, roughly one month before the last lecture of the semester. On top trying to squeeze trips, meetings and presentations in between while dealing … Continue reading → [Read more...]

Reached mid-semester point, with quite a few new lectures to prepare. Nothing extremely complicated but, as always, the tricky part is finding a way to make it meaningful and memorable. Sometimes, and this is one of those times, I sound … Continue reading → [Read more...]

Back teaching a couple of subjects and it’s the constant challenge to find enough common ground with students so one can push/pull them to the other side of new concepts. We are not talking about complex hierarchical models using mixed … Continue reading → [Read more...]

The end is near! At least the semester is coming to an end, so students have crazy expectations like getting marks back for assignments, and administrators want to see exam scripts. Sigh! What has been happening meanwhile in Quantum Forest? … Continue reading → [Read more...]

It has been month and a half since I compiled a list of statistical/programming internet flotsam and jetsam. Via Lambda The Ultimate: Evaluating the Design of the R Language: Objects and Functions For Data Analysis (PDF). A very detailed evaluation … Continue reading → [Read more...]

It has been a strange last ten days since we unexpectedly entered grant writing mode. I was looking forward to work on this issue near the end of the year but a likely change on funding agency priorities requires applying … Continue reading → [Read more...]

This coming Monday we start the first semester in Canterbury (and in New Zealand for that matter). We are all looking forward to an earthquake-free year; more realistically, I’d be happy with low magnitude aftershocks. The Wall Street Journal reports … Continue reading → [Read more...]